The Ledes

Thursday, October 10, 2024

CNBC: “The pace of price increases over the past year was higher than forecast in September while jobless claims posted an unexpected jump following Hurricane Helene and the Boeing strike, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The consumer price index, a broad gauge measuring the costs of goods and services across the U.S. economy, increased a seasonally adjusted 0.2% for the month, putting the annual inflation rate at 2.4%. Both readings were 0.1 percentage point above the Dow Jones consensus. The annual inflation rate was 0.1 percentage point lower than August and is the lowest since February 2021.”

The New York Times' live updates of Hurrucane Milton consequences Thursday are here: “Milton was still producing damaging hurricane-force winds and heavy rainfall to parts of East and Central Florida, forecasters said early Thursday, even as the powerful storm roared away from the Atlantic coast and left deaths and widespread damage across the state. Cities along Florida’s east coast are now facing flash flooding, damaging winds and storm surges. Some had already been battered by powerful tornadoes spun out by the storm before it made landfall on the Gulf Coast on Wednesday as a Category 3 hurricane. In [St. Lucie] county [Fort Pierce], several people in a retirement community were killed by a tornado, the police said.... More than three million customers were without power in Florida as of early Thursday.” ~~~

     ~~~ Here are the Weater Channel's live updates.

CNN: “The 2024 Nobel Prize in literature has been awarded to Han Kang, a South Korean author, for her 'intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.' Han, 53, began her career with a group of poems in a South Korean magazine, before making her prose debut in 1995 with a short story collection. She later began writing longer prose works, most notably 'The Vegetarian,' one of her first books to be translated into English. The novel, which won the Man Booker International Prize in 2016, charts a young woman’s attempt to live a more 'plant-like' existence after suffering macabre nightmares about human cruelty. Han is the first South Korean author to win the literature prize, and just the 18th woman out of the 117 prizes awarded since 1901.” The New York Times story is here.

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The Ledes

Wednesday, October 9, 2024

Washington Post: “Hours before Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida, a spate of unusually strong and long-lived tornadoes touched down across the state, flipping tractor-trailers and ripping off roofs. The twisters surprised anxious residents, even as the storm’s eye still loomed. Authorities said there had been 'multiple' deaths after the intense and destructive tornadoes.” MB: I'm still on Florida's emergency-call list, and I received several calls from Lee County, urging me to shelter in place.

The Washington Post's live updates of Hurricane Milton developments are here: “Hurricane Milton, which has strengthened to a 'catastrophic' Category 5 storm, is closing in on Florida’s west coast and is expected to make landfall Wednesday night or early Thursday, the National Hurricane Center said. The hurricane, which could bring maximum sustained winds of nearly 160 mph with bigger gusts, poses a dire threat to the densely populated zone that includes Tampa, Sarasota and Fort Myers. As well as 'damaging hurricane-force winds,' coastal communities face a 'life-threatening' storm surge, the center said.” ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times' live updates are here: “Milton carved a path of destruction after crashing ashore Wednesday evening on Florida’s Gulf Coast, making landfall near Sarasota as the second powerful hurricane to pound the region in less than two weeks. The storm battered the state for much of the day, with heavy winds, pelting rain and a spate of tornadoes.... By around midnight, the storm had destroyed more than 100 homes, killed several people in a retirement community and ripped the roof off Tropicana Field, the home of the Tampa Bay Rays.”

Washington Post: “The Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded to David Baker at the University of Washington and Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper of Google DeepMind.... The prize was awarded to scientists who cracked the code of proteins. Hassabis and Jumper used artificial intelligence to predict the structure of proteins, one of the toughest problems in biology. Baker created computational tools to design novel proteins with shapes and functions that can be used in drugs, vaccines and sensors.”

Sorry, forgot this yesterday: ~~~

Reuters: “U.S. scientist John Hopfield and British-Canadian Geoffrey Hinton won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for discoveries and inventions in machine learning that paved the way for the artificial intelligence boom. Heralded for its revolutionary potential in areas ranging from cutting-edge scientific discovery to more efficient admin, the emerging technology on which the duo worked has also raised fears humankind may soon be outsmarted and outcompeted by its own creation.”

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Public Service Announcement

Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion — reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks.

Washington Post: “First came the surprising discovery that Earth’s atmosphere is leaking. But for roughly 60 years, the reason remained a mystery. Since the late 1960s, satellites over the poles detected an extremely fast flow of particles escaping into space — at speeds of 20 kilometers per second. Scientists suspected that gravity and the magnetic field alone could not fully explain the stream. There had to be another source creating this leaky faucet. It turns out the mysterious force is a previously undiscovered global electric field, a recent study found. The field is only about the strength of a watch battery — but it’s enough to thrust lighter ions from our atmosphere into space. It’s also generated unlike other electric fields on Earth. This newly discovered aspect of our planet provides clues about the evolution of our atmosphere, perhaps explaining why Earth is habitable. The electric field is 'an agent of chaos,' said Glyn Collinson, a NASA rocket scientist and lead author of the study. 'It undoes gravity.... Without it, Earth would be very different.'”

The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

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The Commentariat -- December 1, 2020

Afternoon Update:

** Biggest Rat Abandons Sunk Ship. Michael Balsamo of the AP: "Attorney General William Barr said Tuesday the Justice Department has not uncovered evidence of widespread voter fraud that would change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. His comments in an interview with The Associated Press come despite ... Donald Trump's repeated baseless claims that the election was stolen, Trump&'s effort to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election and his refusal to concede his loss to President-Elect Joe Biden. Barr said U.S. attorneys and FBI agents have been working to follow up specific complaints and information they've received, but they've uncovered no evidence that would change the outcome of the election.... Before the election, he had repeatedly raised the notion that mail-in voter fraud could be especially vulnerable to fraud.... Shortly after Barr's statement was published, Trump tweeted out more baseless claims of voter fraud. And his attorney Rudy Giuliani and his campaign issued a scathing statement claiming that, 'with all due respect to the Attorney General, there hasn't been any semblance' of an investigation." A Washington Post story is here.

And Mitch Has Such an Understated Way of Saying Good-Bye. Felicia Sonmez & Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post: "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday that there will be a new administration in January, going further than he previously has in acknowledging Trump's election loss. 'I think we all know that after the first of the year there's likely to be a discussion about additional -- some additional package of some size next year, depending upon what the new administration wants to pursue,' McConnell told reporters during remarks on coronavirus relief negotiations." This is part of the WashPo's free election updates Tuesday.

Maggie Haberman & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "Rudolph W. Giuliani ... discussed with the president as recently as last week the possibility of receiving a pre-emptive pardon before Mr. Trump leaves office, according to two people told of the discussion. It was not clear who raised the topic. The men have also talked previously about a pardon for Mr. Giuliani, according to the people. Mr. Trump has not indicated what he will do, one of the people said. Mr. Giuliani's potential criminal exposure is unclear. He was under investigation as recently as last summer by federal prosecutors in Manhattan for his business dealings in Ukraine and his role in ousting the American ambassador there, a plot that was at the heart of the impeachment of Mr. Trump." The report is part of Tuesday's NYT political updates.

Rebecca Shabad of NBC News: "Christopher Krebs, who was recently fired by ... Donald Trump as the head of the federal government's election cybersecurity efforts, suggested Tuesday that he might take legal action against one of Trump's lawyers who said that Krebs should be shot. In an interview on NBC's 'Today' show, host Savannah Guthrie asked Krebs how concerned he is about the comments made by Trump campaign lawyer Joe DiGenova in an interview Monday in which he said that Krebs 'is a class A moron. He should be drawn and quartered. Taken out at dawn and shot.' 'It's certainly more dangerous language, more dangerous behavior,' Krebs responded. 'And the way I look at it is that we are a nation of laws, and I plan to take advantage of those laws. I've got an exceptional team of lawyers that win in court, and I think they're probably going to be busy.'"

Seung Min Kim, et al., of the Washington Post: "A bipartisan group of senators introduced a stimulus proposal worth about $908 billion on Tuesday, aiming to break a months-long partisan impasse over providing emergency federal relief to the U.S. economy.... With negotiations among congressional leaders at a standstill, senators in both parties have worked together for weeks on a proposal that could break the logjam. Several centrist lawmakers in the Senate -- including Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) -- held a news conference Tuesday morning to push their proposal as a template for legislation that could pass Congress as the economy faces increasing strain from a winter surge in coronavirus cases."

Ron Brownstein of CNN: "The silence of congressional Republican leaders as ... Donald Trump's unfounded claims of election fraud grow wilder and more venomous increasingly resembles the party's deference to Sen. Joe McCarthy during the worst excesses of his anti-Communist crusade in the early 1950s. In McCarthy's era, most of the GOP's leaders found excuses to avoid challenging conspiracy theories that they knew to be implausible, even as evidence of their costs to the nation steadily mounted. For years, despite their private doubts about his charges and methods alike, the top GOP leadership -- particularly Senate Republican leader Robert A. Taft, the Mitch McConnell of his day -- either passively abetted or actively supported McCarthy's scattershot claims of treason and Communist infiltration. A significant faction of Senate Republicans didn't join with Democrats to curb McCarthy's power until the senator immolated himself with his accusations, in highly publicized 1953 and 1954 hearings, that the Army was riddled with Communists during the presidency of fellow Republican Dwight Eisenhower.... The vast majority of congressional Republicans have supported Trump since his 2017 inauguration at almost every turn, brushing aside concerns about everything from openly racist language to his efforts to extort the government of Ukraine to manufacture dirt on ... Joe Biden."

Teo Armus of the Washington Post: "A group of four Republican state lawmakers filed a dozen articles of impeachment against [Ohio Gov. Mike] DeWine [R] on Monday, saying the governor violated state and federal laws by requiring masks in public and ordering some businesses to close.... But with the pandemic having killed more than 267,000 people across the country and at least 6,429 in Ohio, DeWine brushed off their efforts and urged the lawmakers to focus on those suffering from or fighting covid-19 on the front lines."

The Washington Post's live updates of Covid-19 developments Tuesday are here.

Australia. Graham Readfearn of the Guardian: "A bushfire has burned across half the World Heritage-listed K'gari/Fraser Island -- the world's biggest sand island, off Australia's Queensland coast -- with potentially catastrophic consequences for its habitats and wildlife. The blaze, which has been alight for more than six weeks, is threatening major tourism and rainforest areas after burning much of the island's north. Queensland Fire and Emergency Services told the Guardian on Tuesday the fire was encroaching on the island's famous Valley of the Giants -- home to trees more than 1,000 years old.... The fire started in mid-October after an illegal campfire and has since burned across 81,000 hectares (200,000 acres)." --s

Dalya Alberge of the Guardian: "One of the world's largest collections of prehistoric rock art has been discovered in the Amazonian rainforest. Hailed as 'the Sistine Chapel of the ancients', archaeologists have found tens of thousands of paintings of animals and humans created up to 12,500 years ago across cliff faces that stretch across nearly eight miles in Colombia." --s

~~~~~~~~~~

Geoff Bennett, et al., of NBC News: "President-elect Joe Biden on Monday received his first presidential daily briefing since he won the election, a victory that was further cemented when the battleground state of Arizona certified his win there." MB: I wonder if Biden & Harris will get real PDBs or copies of the same coloring/picture books Trump receives. (This is an update of a story linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

A recently-released early PDB tailored for Donald Trump. By the Onion, via the Verge.

Jeff Stein, et al., of the Washington Post: "President-elect Joe Biden's pick to lead the powerful White House budget office generated early controversy Monday, with Neera Tanden emerging as an immediate target for conservatives and Republican lawmakers. Tanden, 50, has regularly clashed with the GOP in a manner that Republicans say will complicate her Senate confirmation process. Several GOP senators said Monday that she could run into trouble during confirmation hearings, warning that her 'partisan' background could make it hard for her to win Republican support. The two Senate Republicans poised to lead committees that would hold Tanden's confirmation hearings [-- Rob Portman (Ohio) & Lindsey Graham (S.C.) --] both declined to commit to doing so." MB: Because none of Trump's appointees has been a partisan hack (Mike Pompeo, John Ratcliffe, etc.). And Trump himself is a is a paragon of courtesy.

The Latest from the Mad Kaiser. Charlie Nash of Mediaite: "... Donald Trump called on 'hapless' Republican Georgia Governor Brian Kemp to 'use his emergency powers' to search for alleged 2020 election fraud in the state on Monday. 'Why won't Governor @BrianKempGA, the hapless Governor of Georgia, use his emergency powers, which can be easily done, to overrule his obstinate Secretary of State, and do a match of signatures on envelopes,' questioned Trump on Twitter, claiming, 'It will be a "goldmine" of fraud, and we will easily WIN the state.... Also, quickly check the number of envelopes versus the number of ballots. You may just find that there are many more ballots than there are envelopes. So simple, and so easy to do,' he continued. 'Georgia Republicans are angry, all Republicans are angry. Get it done!'... Business Insider senior politics reporter Grace Panetta soon pointed out to the president that Kemp 'does not have this power,' and, 'Signature matching already happened twice, first when the voter applied for the ballot and then the ballot was received.... It's impossible to do signature matching *again* because the ballots have already been separated from the envelopes with the voter's name and signature on them.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ So Then. Greg Bluestein of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "Gov. Brian Kemp's office responded Monday to ... Donald Trump's demands to help him overturn Georgia's election results with a reminder that state law 'prohibits the governor from interfering in the election.'... 'Georgia law prohibits the governor from interfering in elections. The Secretary of State, who is an elected constitutional officer, has oversight over elections that cannot be overridden by executive order,' said Kemp spokesman Cody Hall.... The governor has been largely silent for weeks over Trump's attacks which have escalated after he became the first Republican to lose Georgia in a presidential vote in nearly 30 years.... Kemp has had little backup from other GOP officials." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Josh Dawsey & Michelle Lee of the Washington Post: "President Trump's political operation has raised more than $150 million since Election Day, using a blizzard of misleading appeals about the election to shatter fundraising records set during the campaign, according to people with knowledge of the contributions. The influx of political donations is one reason Trump and some allies are inclined to continue a legal onslaught and public affairs blitz focused on baseless claims of election fraud, even as their attempts have repeatedly failed in court and as key states continue to certify wins for President-elect Joe Biden. Much of the money raised since the election is likely to go into an account for the president to use on political activities after he leaves office...." According to the New York Times, the figure is more like $170MM.

Matthew Choi of Politico: "An attorney for ... Donald Trump's reelection efforts said on Monday that Chris Krebs, the former head of U.S. cybersecurity, should be 'shot' for going against the president's conspiracy theories and declaring the 2020 elections as secure. 'Anybody who thinks the election went well, like that idiot Krebs who used to be the head of cybersecurity,' said Trump campaign lawyer Joe DiGenova, 'that guy is a class A moron. He should be drawn and quartered. Taken out at dawn and shot.' DiGenova made the remarks on a Monday episode of the 'The Howie Carr Show,' which has a history of showcasing Trump's claims and allies. During the show, DiGenova also listed a number of allegations of mass election irregularities -- a phenomenon that elections officials in states across the country agreed was not an issue -- in his team's improbable effort to extend the Trump presidency." MB: Whatever bar associations to which DiGenova belongs should pull his membership.

Arizona & Wisconsin. Reid Epstein of the New York Times: "Arizona and Wisconsin on Monday certified President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. as the winner in their presidential elections, formalizing his victory in two additional battleground states as President Trump's effort to overturn the results of the election continued to fall short. Such certifications would be an afterthought in any other year. But in a political environment where Mr. Trump's false claims of sweeping voter fraud have created an alternate reality among his die-hard backers in the West Wing and beyond, the results have closed off yet another path to victory for him.... In Arizona, Katie Hobbs, the Democratic secretary of state, formalized her state's results while sitting at a long table with three Republicans who signed the election documents: Gov. Doug Ducey; the state's attorney general, Mark Brnovich; and the chief justice of the Arizona Supreme Court, Robert M. Brutinel. Ann Jacobs, the chairwoman of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, signed a document during a three-minute video conference in which she narrate herself certifying Mr. Biden's victory.... Later Monday afternoon, Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin, a Democrat, announced that he had signed the state’s Certificate of Ascertainment appointing Mr. Biden's slate of electors to represent Wisconsin at the Electoral College." ~~~

~~~ How Donald Found Out You He's a Has-Been. Aila Slisco of Newsweek: "Republican Arizona Governor Doug Ducey may have ignored a phone call from ... Donald Trump or Vice President Mike Pence while certifying President-elect Joe Biden as the winner of the state on Monday. Ducey indicated in July that his cell phone is set to play 'Hail to the Chief' when receiving a call from Trump or Pence. In a video of Ducey signing documents cementing Biden's win on Monday, the song can be faintly heard before the governor is shown pulling a phone out of his coat pocket, putting it on his desk and slightly shaking his head." ~~~

     ~~~ Valerie Edwards & Geoff Earle of the Daily Mail: "Trump then retweeted a claim that Ducey had 'betrayed the people of Arizona,' and commented: 'TRUE!' He also shared a post that asked: 'Who needs Democrats when you have Republicans like (Georgia Gov) Brian Kemp and Doug Ducey?' Earlier on Monday, Trump dialed into an Arizona 'hearing' on election fraud [run by Rudy Giuliani] that went on for more than eight hours, claiming the election was 'rigged' and bashing Ducey for certifying the state's vote for Biden."

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

"The Long Darkness Before Dawn." Donald McNeil of the New York Times: "Each week, good news about vaccines or antibody treatments surfaces, offering hope that an end to the pandemic is at hand. And yet this holiday season presents a grim reckoning. The United States has reached an appalling milestone: more than one million new coronavirus cases every week. Hospitals in some states are full to bursting. The number of deaths is rising and seems on track to easily surpass the 2,200-a-day average in the spring, when the pandemic was concentrated in the New York metropolitan area. Our failure to protect ourselves has caught up to us. The nation now must endure a critical period of transition, one that threatens to last far too long, as we set aside justifiable optimism about next spring and confront the dark winter ahead. Some epidemiologists predict that the death toll by March could be close to twice the 250,000 figure that the nation surpassed only last week."

Atlas Quit. Kaitlan Collins, et al., of CNN: "Dr. Scott Atlas, a highly controversial member of the White House's coronavirus task force, has resigned from his post in the Trump administration. A source familiar with what happened told CNN that Atlas turned in his resignation letter to ... Donald Trump on Monday. As a special government employee, Atlas had a 130-day window in which he could serve and that window was technically coming to a close this week. Atlas tweeted out a photo of his resignation letter [dated Tuesday] later Monday." ~~~

~~~ And Won't Be Missed. Josh Dawsey & Yasmeen Abutaleb of the Washington Post: "Atlas had become widely disliked in the White House -- even among aides who shared his view that the country should reopen and that officials should not worry about young, healthy people contracting the virus, according to two senior administration officials, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.... Atlas, a neuroradiologist with no infectious-disease or public health background..., was the only medical adviser the president met with regularly for several months.... Atlas embraced strategies that most public health experts warned were dangerous. He advocated allowing the virus to spread among young healthy people to help the country reach 'herd immunity' levels -- a strategy experts warned would result in tens of thousands of needless deaths -- and said the country should focus on protecting the vulnerable and the elderly.... He also shot down attempts by [Drs. Deborah] Birx and [Anthony] Fauci to expand testing; openly feuded with other doctors on the coronavirus task force and succeeded in largely sidelining them; and advanced fringe theories, such as that social distancing and mask-wearing were meaningless...."

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Monday are here: "Dr. [Anthony] Fauci, during an appearance on the Sunday news program 'This Week,' said the best course for Thanksgiving travelers might be 'to quarantine yourself for a period of time.' Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, said that travelers 'have to assume that you were exposed and you became infected and you really need to get tested in the next week.' She urged that travelers avoid anyone in their family over 65 or with underlying illnesses." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Maggie Fox & John Bonifield of CNN: "Advisers to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have called an emergency meeting for Tuesday to vote on who they recommend should be the first to get a coronavirus vaccine once one is authorized. The CDC's Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices wants to have advice out to the public ahead of any decision from the US Food and Drug Administration about emergency authorization of a vaccine, ACIP chair Dr. Jose Romero told CNN.... 'This is not something that is being rushed. We have already discussed the groups within the first tier. We are simply going over the data once again and having a vote primarily on the first tier group 1a -- healthcare providers and the people in the long term, congregate facilities.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)


Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "The Justice Department asked a federal judge on Monday to dismiss the criminal case against President Trump's former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn, citing his pardon last week -- and making clear that it broadly covered potential legal troubles beyond the charge Mr. Flynn had faced of lying to federal investigators.... The filing was accompanied by the text of the pardon itself, which had not previously been released. While Mr. Trump had said on Twitter that he was granting Mr. Flynn a 'full' pardon, he left unclear how far that would go in terms of any potential legal jeopardy for Mr. Flynn over other matters for which he had not been charged. The pardon, however, was written broadly not only to cover lying to the F.B.I., but to foreclose any legal jeopardy Mr. Flynn might face from a future Justice Department arising from the Turkey matter, his inconsistent statements under oath to Judge [Emmet] Sullivan and any potential perjury or false statements to Mr. Mueller's team or to the grand juries it used." Politico's story, which discusses the extraordinary breadth of the Flynn pardon, is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The pardon seems to guarantee that there is no circumstance in which Flynn could plead the Fifth. However, what isn't clear from either story is whether or not Flynn could get away with stonewalling or lying under oath during any future investigation or proceeding, say, one that addressed Donald Trump's crimes.

More Trump Associates Who Might Need Some Pardoning. Adam Klasfeld of Law & Crime: "A federal judge on Monday partially advanced a lawsuit accusing Russian mafia-tied businessman Felix Sater of laundering millions stolen from Kazakhstan's BTA Bank through Trump Organization properties. 'In this case, Kazakhstan's largest city and a Kazakhstani bank seek to recover millions of dollars in stolen funds from those who allegedly helped the culprits launder them,' U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan summarized in a 25-page opinion dismissing only two counts of a five-count complaint. 'Felix Sater -- the alleged ringleader of the money-laundering operation -- along with his associate Daniel Ridloff and several business entities they control, move to dismiss.' Like Sater, Ridloff was also formerly associated with the Trump Organization. The lawsuit stems from allegations of the systematic looting of Kazakhstan's largest city Almaty and its bank in 2009."

Lauren Feiner of CNBC: “Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai will step down from his post on Jan. 20, the day President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated, he announced Monday. The announcement means that the FCC could reach a Democratic majority sooner than it would otherwise be able to. Pai's term was slated to expire in June 2021, though Biden will be able to choose a Democrat to chair the commission once in office.... Pai's decision to step down could have significant implications on net neutrality, an issue that helped define his term as chairman. In 2017, Pai voted with his fellow Republican commissioners to remove rules that prohibited internet providers from blocking or slowing traffic to particular sites and offering higher speed 'lanes' at higher prices. Many major internet providers have not yet taken advantage of that rule change, however.... Pai had recently said that the FCC could move forward with rule-making around ... Donald Trump's executive order targeting social media companies.... Pai's departure makes it much less likely that significant action on the executive order will take place anytime soon, given that the two Democratic commissioners opposed Pai's decision." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

** Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "A skeptical Supreme Court on Monday reacted with frustration and some confusion to President Trump's plan to exclude unauthorized immigrants from the calculations used to allocate seats in the House. While there was some discussion about whether the plan was lawful, the more immediate questions for the justices were where the administration stood in its efforts to identify and count the unauthorized immigrants and what role the court should play if substantial numbers were not identified. Removing undocumented immigrants from the census would most likely have the effect of shifting congressional seats and federal money to states that are older, whiter and typically more Republican. But if the Census Bureau cannot provide Mr. Trump with specific information about a large enough number of unauthorized immigrants in the coming weeks, he will not be able to exclude enough of them from the reapportionment to change the way House seats are allocated. That would leave the justices without a concrete dispute to decide. 'The situation is fairly fluid,' Jeffrey B. Wall, the acting United States solicitor general, told the justices.... 'There is a real prospect that the numbers will not affect the apportionment,' he said."

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Reader Comments (18)

I continue to believe that our body politic is vastly underplaying the very real and glaringly obvious reality that the programmed beneficiaries of the weapons-grade rightwing propaganda networks, Republican Senators and Representatives and media moguls and think tanks all supposedly still rooted in New York Times and Washington Post reality and instead just cynically playing to the rube base, have in fact been permanently corrupted by the same distorted reality they've built for their political base.

The Gingrich 'revolution' of bomb-throwing and scorched earth politics started in 1994. Fox News started in 1996. That's a quarter century of slowly refined, fine tuned professionalized propaganda, where every year it shed more 'journalism' for radicalized partisan gain. That the propaganda has been widely successful across America is obvious in its consistently strong ratings. Drumpf watches it likes its the gospel, but he's not the only one. Likewise, anecdotal stories have also came out through the years where Republican officeholders require a strict Fox News diet in their office or headquarters. If a heretic turns on CNN they must quickly turn the channel. This is likely in large part the politicians and political consultants staying close to rightwing narrative, another famous product of the Gingrich boot camp. But at what point does 24/7 Fox alt-reality eventually infect the motherboard?

Just in the past few weeks, Steve Bannon called for Fauci's beheading, Sidney Powell claimed Hugo Chavez stole the election from beyond the grave, Joe DiGenova called for the Republican cybersecurity head appointed by Trump, Chris Krebs, to be drawn and quarter/shot at dawn, Senator Rand Paul claimed electoral fraud because of midnight electoral statistical 'abnormalities', Stanford-educated Scott Atlas just quit after derailing our country into perpetual COVID mass death...more evidence mounts daily and has been extensively reported on this site.

The overbearing narrative is the GOP isn't actually brain damaged and delusional like their base, they're just cold hearted cynics playing up the lies to stay in power. I beg to differ. We're seeing flashing red lights that the entire conservative apparatus, from the deplorables, the COVID-truthers and anti-maskers, to the executive suites and Fox News editorial teams to Washington DC to the White House, the Big Lie has taken root across the entire hierarchy. Insanity will only ratchet up as Democrats attempts to negotiate with truly delusional lunatics.

Maybe it was still an act a decade ago, but it's not anymore. The neurological transformation has been triggered after drinking the feel good Kool-Aid for the last quarter century. Mathematical algorithms in social media feeds have super charged the seed of delusion. We need to truly start changing the narrative and point out how enraptured Republican members of Congress are as equally deluded as their unwashed masses. They too are on the train and they take it further down the road every day. Unless a massive deprogramming effort takes place, the delusions will only intensify.

December 1, 2020 | Unregistered Commentersafari

@safari: YES! This was my point yesterday and has been for some time. And you are so right about the beginnings of this particular divisive destruction––I say "particular" since we have dealt with this kind of thing in all its guises for as long as this country was first founded––that Gingrich was the band leader that changed the tune back in the Clinton administration. If the Georgia run-offs give us the two dems that will change the senate majority, then we have a chance to grab back a path toward sanity. But that GOP band of brothers whose base is overflowing with a fever pitch adoration for their savior will be with us trying to gum up the works and days of the new administration which by the looks of it will have the best of the best and that gives me hope.

Anyway––thanks for your cogent comments.

December 1, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

I think I have bought into safari's uncomfortable statements/comments 100%. I think the crazy person in the White House, although supposedly possessing the finger on THE button/football, is not as dangerous as the people sneaking through the White House shrubbery and whispering to the WH stalwarts, and still elected by the rubes. It gives me cold chills to see McConnell's ugly drooping face and hear his nasty voice, dripping with condescending snideness. He scares me more, as he is so grandiose, always hiding from any criticism, and the power matters so much to him. The supremes don't seem to be as evil, even with an equal amount of power. And I seriously worry about what this country has become, led by people that have been at the helm. Cotton, Pompeo and their ilk are cold, glitter-eyed poisonous snakes and they aren't going away. DiGenova is ugly and stupid Powell and Ellis and Rudy are right there in the Despicables basket-- Never in my life have I wished for people's deaths or jail cells like I do these days.

December 1, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterJeanne

@safari: I second @PD's endorsement of your commentary.

I think decades ago, Republicans figured out that their ideology of small government -- i.e., do nothing for people -- and big wars & big business was not all that appealing to the average American. So Republicans made up a facade of "principles": tough-on-crime (i.e., on black people); "traditional" values (white men rule); "patriotism" (ha ha): (America, love it or leave it); "individual rights/freedumb": guns; and then tacked on the inviolable sanctity of embryos.

Even as white people went with the general program, they were aware that government wasn't doing enough for them (and Obama was giving black people free phones!). So to maintain the Republican party and its underlying "principles," it was almost necessary that it become a cult of personality, because absent that, there is no there there.

December 1, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterMarie Burns

“Dr.” Scott Asshole, er, I mean Atlas, is looking for work. His last job, spreading lies and disinformation about the coronavirus, and exhorting people to expose themselves to the deadly virus and to attack government leaders trying to keep them alive, guaranteed the infection and deaths of many thousands Americans, who are now dying at the rate of one a minute, every day.

What can he do as an encore?

“I am demanding to be made director of CERN. I know nothing about particle physics or the large hadron collider, but I think that facility is being misused. I will encourage the Swiss people to rise up against scientists and demand that they be allowed to take rides on the collider. It could be a great amusement park ride. I’ll fuck that place up in a week!”

Well, maybe not. The Swiss aren’t nearly as stupid as Trumpen Americans.

So what else? He could get together with Betsy (kids=Ka-ching!) DeVos who will soon be out of a job she knows nothing about. “I know zip about education too!” crowed Scottie. “Together, Betsy and I can really warp a few million kids. Trumpen family kids are already near-idiots. We’ll finish the job!”

Actually, the best chance ol, Doc Asshole has for a new line of work is more practical: CEO of American Coffins, Inc. After all, he’s helped boost their sales by several thousand percent.

Good luck, doc. Hopefully, there’s a coffin in your near future. Thanks for nothin’. You fuck.

December 1, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

On a more serious note, Trump’s strategy of allowing Americans to die, nay, encouraging them to kill themselves, for his benefit, should not be allowed to fade into dusty, barely opened history books.

This is the single most evil scheme perpetrated on American soil since our founding. Yes, the Civil War resulted in more casualties, but combatants on both sides believed in what they were about. No one person convinced confederates to lay down their lives so that millions of Americans could remain slaves. That was a cultural belief instilled in most since birth.

Donald Trump, by himself, caused the deaths of over a quarter of a million Americans and single-handedly crippled the healthcare of millions more. Why? So he could look good and win an election.

This must not be forgotten. He and his allies and enablers must be forced to wear this scarlet letter until they’re dead and buried. In unholy ground.

December 1, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Said to my wife last night that empty of intellect, morality, or ideas as he was, the Pretender did bring something to the table: The fantasy life he had led, where his claims about his genius were never more than claims, was the perfect fit for the Let's Pretend Party safari so well describes.

It was no accident that a man who has lied more than 23,000 times in four years was embraced by an entire political party. By the time of his arrival the majority of Republicans had been trained to live in a world of upside down reality, where fact was in disrepute and truth and fiction indistinguishable.

From the beginning things as obvious and empirically verifiable as crowd sizes were fabricated, and alternative facts about everything from the climate crisis, the Pretender's ties to Russia and eventually the Covid pandemic and a national election were gleefully advanced and swallowed whole by millions.

Words like hoax, scam, and fake took on new meanings. Instead of denoting claims unsubstantiated by reality, again for millions they came to mean anything I would prefer not to believe.

Cause and effect are hard to tease apart, and I can't locate when Republicans generally or the Pretender in particular began accepting their delusions as truth, but I'm with safari on this:

The whole bunch of them have made the trip to fantasyland and have decided to stay.

The proof is everywhere. Reports of the Pretender's delusions about the election are common, but this morning's favorite: Neera Tanden is attacked by some Republicans for her terrible tweets.

From what I've seen they are terrible because they are true. (The terrible trues?)

Kinda like all that fake news over the last four yearw that turned out to be precisely on the mark.

December 1, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

There is no deprogramming of these traitors.

Here’s John Cornyn:

Sen. Cornyn: "I will not support any nominee who doesn't provide full transparency into their work on behalf of a foreign government. I will not do it. The American people deserve to know if these or any future nominees are beholden to anything other than our national interest."

Are.You.Fucking.Kidding.Me?

https://mobile.twitter.com/thehill/status/1333543477485965313?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1333577636770091009%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es3_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdigbysblog.net%2F

December 1, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Look now for demands to see tax returns, investigations into former relationships, bank statements and all the things that horrified them when directed toward someone who actually did (and still does) work for a foreign government against the interests of the United States.

“Hypocrisy” as a concept, is dead. These people have made it unusable.

December 1, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Democrats need to win both Senate seats in Georgia then ignore these traitors and everything they have to lie about.

December 1, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

@Safari, I agree with your synopsis, but as Marie's description of the GOP's motivations suggests, it is not all cynicism and diabolical machinations to subvert democracy. This group has a different set of ideas about patriotism. It's Reganism on steroids. It's the creed of American individualism ("I got mine - to hell with the rest of youz") writ large, instead of seeing government as a institution that fosters moderated cooperation whereby we all benefit - more than through individual efforts alone. The monopolized corporate culture that views Americans only as "consumers", a culture which both democrat and republican administrations have promoted, has been breeding and indoctrinating the hyper-individual consumer for generations.

So, when you write ..."Unless a massive deprogramming effort takes place, the delusions will only intensify." I have a hard time visualizing how deprogramming comes about. Joseph McCarthy continued to speak out against communist conspiracies even after he was publicly shamed. He and his followers were not deprogrammed. Trump will likely announce his candidacy for 2024 simultaneously with Biden's inauguration, which his base will likely attend shouting their "lock him up for stealing the election" chants.

In my view, change (deprogramming) will turn positive, not only when government does improve everyone's lives, but when we acknowledge that we can't spend our way into a sustainable future - trusting "market solutions" (read globalization and automation) to give Americans a chance to earn a dignified self-fulfilling living. Globalization and automation created the Trump supporter - at the middle (now bottom) and at the top of the income hierarchy.

I think younger people today are more aware of the benefits of social cooperation and traps of consumerism. That gives me hope - more than any government sponsored 'deprogramming' curriculum would.

December 1, 2020 | Unregistered Commenterperiscope

A tardy Thanksgiving:

So fortunate to have seen Fraser Island before the burn, the still impressive tho' disappearing glaciers at South America's southern tip and some shreds of American democracy while they lasted.

December 1, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

Marcy Wheeler (@emptywheel) follows the Flynn debacle closely and frequently posts on her blog. She posted today enumerating the 4 things Judge Sullivan should do:

"-Make Trump name Flynn’s crimes
-Establish a record about whether Flynn or Sidney Powell traded
electoral assistance for this pardon
-Force DOJ to explain what went into the altered documents
-Identify who wrote the pardon"

Short piece, interesting arguments.

https://bit.ly/2VqS1zf

December 1, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterAnonymous

In the 50s, my hard working, largely self-educated father taught his children a bit of poetry written Alexander Pope. His purpose was to help us understand how good people could go astray. This poetry came to mind as I read today's thoughtful and well written comments on the present state of the Republican Party.

“Vice is a monster of so frightful mien
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”

December 1, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterIslander

So crazy Rudy wants a pardon, eh? For what? I thought he was out there doing the lord’s work, all completely legal-like. Maybe going to foreign governments trying to get them to invent dirt about an American, a candidate for the presidency, isn’t quite so legal?

Who’d have guessed?

Cue the flop sweat and the melting hair dye...

December 1, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Seasons greeting from the first Family.

And now I know why Rudy held his presser at the landscaping place, the crematorium across the street must have been having a sale on urns.

December 1, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterRAS

The way the bold type displays on my computer, I saw:
Mitch Has Such an Understated Way of Saying Bye, Felicia.
I don't think he would get it.

December 1, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterNiskyGuy

I am sick and tired of quotes like this one from the Post article about bill barr being presented without context: ...“to date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”

It strongly implies that there was plenty of fraud but not enough to overturn the election. But there wasn't. The recounts of the PAPER BALLOTS showed that there was NO FRAUD.

The news media are still coddling the fascists.

December 1, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterNiskyGuy
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